Can we agree on one thing: that opera has been the butt of joking for lo! these many years. Some of us have heard more joking about opera than we have heard opera....not naming names.

I am reminded of the one about Trovatore, a piss-take which refuses to die. Best said by Julian Budden, in his The Operas of Verdi:

"How many people will claim that they have heard a performance in English in the course of which Manrico declared, sword in hand, 'Mother is roasting!'? I do not believe that such a translation exists."

The full piss-take begins, 'Mother is roasting / Down in the courtyard....'   The actual aria begins "Di quella pira," for those who are ignorant (I was ignorant for years -- I grew up in a house where opera was disliked).